I had a surface bar piercing procedure done about a month ago on my left wrist. I had originally intended to go in for a tattoo on my left ankle – a rotting, dead corpse hand with yellowing fingers grasping my leg and pulling me down with blood dripping from the fingernail rake marks, all in full color. It’s going to be a masterpiece!
Unfortunately, it would take about four hours to ink and an hour to draw so I decided to go for an unconventional piercing instead. My policy regarding piercings is simple – it has to be concealed (or at least concealable) due to my line of work. I have pierced most of my face since I was 15 and I only have my tongue and nipple piercings left.
I came to this tattoo place to get my nipples pierced about three months ago and asked about flesh stapling and other hardcore or extreme piercings that they do. They couldn’t do it back then but I noticed they have some paraphernalia for it now. However, they still couldn’t do proper flesh stapling so I went for the next best thing – three surface piercings down my left wrist. The piercing guy told me I’m the first one to do this, so I’m the guinea pig.
I like the sound of that. 😉
Thus, I signed the indemnity form and proceeded with the surface piercing.
I originally planned for three similar length and gauge surface piercings but the piercer told me it would look disproportionate due to the widening of the arm, so he suggested 22 gauge, 24 gauge and 26 gauge bars in ascending order so it’ll look straight. It turned out to be an excellent suggestion.
Surface bar piercing is the exact “opposite” of flesh stapling. Flesh stapling allows the “bar” to be visible, but the “ends” to be invisible while surface bar piercings has the “ends” visible while the “bar” goes under the skin.
The skin is clamped together at the wrist and then pierced through with a large needle before the surface bar is inserted and the end screwed in. The entire bar goes under your skin so you can feel it beneath your skin, somewhat akin to a sub dermal implant.
This is the process flow of the surface bar piercing procedure:
The site of the piercing (in this case my left wrist) is marked with a pen with horizontal and vertical lines as a guide for the three bars going in.
The skin around the wrist is clamped together – not a very easy task for the first one since it’s located quite high up on the arm. The clamp marks alone took over a week to heal!
A very thick needle is poked through the skin from A to B so it goes under the skin between the two points.
It is temporarily stopped with a cork for safety purposes.
The surface bar is then inserted all the way in…
…before the clamp is released, putting the entire bar under the skin and leaving the ends up. The side of the surface bar is screwed in with a ball.
I did all three in a row which amazed the staff, as did my tolerance for pain. I don’t mean to brag, it’s none of that macho shit, but I honestly don’t feel much pain at all. It hurt a little after a couple of days though, especially when it snags on clothes and hair. I look a little like a porcupine at the wrist, but I kinda like how it looks now.
It’s supposed to take six (!!!) months to completely heal but I think mine is pretty much healed now. It doesn’t hurt anymore, even when slightly snagged. It’s different and I get a lot of double takes and people commenting about it (one guy even wanted to take a photo of it) when I go out.
It’s technically a transdermal implant since part of it is inside the skin and part of it is outside and is considered a little on the extreme side, so that’s something you might want to consider if you’re doing this.
…a video of the third and final wrist piercing going in.
This is what it looks like when it’s done.
It looks horribly painful especially for virgins to the world of self-mutilation, er…I mean body modification but it’s not as painful as it looks. 🙂
